I know that in most of the rest of the US having an umbrella barely pricks the surface of the smoldering heat that’s gripping it like a rabid python. If you live in one of those places you probably don’t want to hear that here in LA, outside of a couple 100° days, it’s been a pretty water park of a summer.

Frogs are more suited for heat infused weather then I am. I would happily volunteer to be a guinea pig whenever they invent air conditioning chips that can be inserted into your body. But until then I’ll just have to pray the sun behaves in LA and look for shade when a super hot ray pokes through, just like these happy little frogs.

I wore my fringe vest for years. It was gold suede, just like the cheesy-haired couples’ on the bottom of this McCall’s pattern, though mine didn’t have the little turquoise beads. I think the sound of them knocking together would have driven me insane. I wore that that vest religiously from about 1970 to 73 but it got so pit stained I finally had to retire it. Suede does not take kindly to pit stains. I know I still have it sitting in a box somewhere. It was too much a part of my formative years to part with forever.

So that’s it. The third and youngest miniskirted, go-go booted Del Rubio has left the planet to rejoin the act. Normally I’m really sad when a friend of mine passes away. Trust me, I’m upset about Milly, but as the Del Rubio’s themselves were fond of saying, they were one person with three heads. And now they are back together as one.

Alex Steinweiss passed away last Sunday. Even if you don’t know his name there’s no way you don’t know his work. Steinweiss literally invented the album cover. Before the 1930′s, records came in brown paper sleeves. At 23, he was hired by Columbia Records and suggested that the music be accompanied by poster art. Thus began the singlemost prolific and influential record jacket design career the world has ever known. Not only did Steinweiss give life to the record industry but he made the burgeoning Atomic Age visible to the public, creating the first wave of freeform design that designers still ride today.

When I was in my adolescent and teen years in Detroit, stuffing my big feet into high heels and T-straps, both of which looked far better sans socks, PEDS were a MAJOR revolution. They were the very first commercially released beige skin colored socklets that acted like socks but were tucked well below the shoe line and made it appear that you were wearing nylons. Which I hated even more than heels.

The only thing I love more than a really bad fashion idea is a really excellent display card to feature it on. The idea of a cigarette ring, or any kind of a ring to park some kind of smokable in, is actually pretty great were the part of the ring meant to hold the smoldering log large enough to accommodate it. But in the case of the Hollywood Finger Ring, unless you’re packing Virginia Slims, that ain’t going to happen.

In a salute to Carmageddon, I’m posting one cheesy transportation-related LP Cover on Facebook for every hour the 405 freeway is shut down in LA this weekend. This is the makings of an extraordinary cheese platter, served one morsel at a time, rivaled only by the Camembert created as local newscasters babble on as if LA is undergoing a lobotomy. If you’re on Facebook, drive directly to http://www.facebook.com/AWMoK or my profile page, http://www.facebook.com/alleewillis. All captions are welcome, the best of which will be used in my Kitsch O’ The Day blog on Monday, which will feature all 53 slices of LP cheese that honor the reopening of my least favorite freeway in LA, the 405.

Yesterday I went to serve some delicious Hostess Twinkies, a staple I always keep around here at Willis Wonderland, to a couple people I was having a meeting with. The subject of Twinkies came up and I thought I would impress them with the fact that I always kept a box of them around. I didn’t even panic when I saw none in the cupboard because I saw two boxes of Twinkies’ sister, Hostess cupcakes, sitting there. But to my horror, when I opened the box and ripped a package open the cupcakes looked like they had emerged from an archaeological dig.